


Let Go

by MK_Yujji



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 14:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: Mystique and Magneto come to the Institute looking for help and find that more has changed than they could ever have guessed.





	Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: there is a small bit where some teenagers are icky about Mystique's lack of clothes.
> 
> This is the result of petty spite and aggravation. That said, I Love all 3 of these idiots even though it may come off otherwise.
> 
> This is set in the same verse as X-Men: First Class, but is AU past that single movie. Erik never goes to prison, he and Mystique never go their separate ways., the school never shuts down, etc. I've made some obvious changes to ages and who is where, etc.

~*~*~*~

The driveway seems endless, even though Mystique knows better than most that it's really not.

“I hate coming here,” she mutters.

Magneto just sighs and raises a hand to swing the gate open. 

“You had your chance to offer a better solution,” he reminds her as they move forward.

It’s been almost a decade since she last lay her head in the monstrosity of a house rising in the distance, longer still since she’d called it home. She's never been able to understand how Charles can stand living in it after all the bad that has happened within its walls.

Rather than respond to his jab, Mystique looks at the obvious changes that have been made since the last time they'd come. The lawns are in neater condition than they've been the entire time she's known the place. The antiquated tennis courts have been replaced with basketball courts. She can hear shrieks of laughter somewhere beyond them.

“You'd think he’d’ve improved the security since the last time we were here. I mean, if it's really a school, you'd think he cared about that.” 

The gate hadn't even been locked, only closed.

Magneto silently pointed upwards towards a strange contraption just barely visible in a nearby tree. 

She pauses to stare for a moment. “Is that a camera?”

It doesn't look like any camera shes ever seen, but something about it is reminiscent of the cameras they see in government facilities.

“There are others, all over the grounds. One near the gate was actively following our movements,” he says, arching a brow. He sounds approving that Charles has finally leaned some small measure of caution. “There was also a fair bit of hidden steel and other metals under the ground. And empty space of some sort… plastics, maybe. I suspect if someone had wanted to keep us out, they would have.”

Attempted, maybe. Mystique trusts that between them, she and Magneto can handle anything her pacifist brother and a bunch of kids can dish out.

Before she can reply, she feels a psychic presence brush across her mind. It’s a bit clumsy, the way Charles hasn’t been since childhood and feels like a weird mix of _curiouswelcomecautioushostile_. 

When she shoves it away, the welcome vanishes entirely and the hostile jabs painfully at her cranium before fading away.

Magneto pauses and begins to look for a threat while she waves him off.

“Apparently there's at least one baby telepath here.”

There are times when she really wishes there was a second helmet laying around. Usually when Emma is being especially obnoxious.

Relaxing, Magneto smirks at her. Smug bastard.

They garner a few second glances as they stalk up to the front door, but no one tries to stop them. If anything, she'd say they vanish more than anything else - one entirely literally.

“Not very friendly.”

That's not surprising though. Even if Charles isn't actively poisoning all their minds towards the Brotherhood, they've made headlines more than once and usually not for nice things.

The downside of being a revolutionary is that apparently people only care when you're doing things the general populace considers ‘bad’. You rescue a house full of enslaved orphans or stop a lynch mob and no one notices, but oh destroy a research facility and suddenly you're the new anti-Christ.

She can only imagine what kind of bullshit these kids believe of them.

The door is propped open for some strange reason - don't they realize doors should be closed in the winter? especially New York's brand of awful winter? - and they simply walk right in.

Alex Summers is coming down the stairs to meet them before they make it past the foyer. His hands are in his pocket and his expression is neutral, but his weight is balanced forward and there's a tell-tale shimmer to the air around him. He's ready to attack if he deems it necessary. 

He looks good, though, calm and settled in a way she's never seen in him off the battlefield. 

“Magneto.”

“Havok.”

“If you're here to start trouble, you can crawl back to whatever rock you crawled out of.”

Mystique scoffs. He's still a loudmouthed lout no matter how old he gets. “If we were here to start trouble, you'd already be dead.”

A look from Magneto keeps her from saying anything else, no matter how much Alex annoys her. Charles and his school really are the best option they have and it wouldn't do to murder any of his people before they even see him.

“We need to speak to Charles,” Magneto says, neatly bringing Alex's attention to him before the other man could respond. “Fetch him.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “You don't give orders here, jackass. The Professor is busy with things way more important than you. You can either talk to me about it or wait for him to finish.” 

“We'll wait.”

“No skin off my nose,” Alex replies. “You can wait in his study.”

He turns and heads down the completely wrong hallway. 

“Charles’ study is the other way, jackass.”

“You haven't lived here in almost a decade, how the hell would you know?” he questions over his shoulder without pausing. 

And that's… that's fair. She has no idea what changes needed to be made to turn the mansion into a school. While the basic shape of things is the same, she can see plenty of differences just walking down the hallway. 

The vast majority of the expensive paraphernalia meant to display the Xavier wealth is gone. The decor is tasteful and understated. None of the remaining artwork is immediately identifiable and the tables and shelves of weird collectibles are gone entirely. 

There are decorations lining the halls now in preparation for the holiday that’s approaching faster than Mystique had really realized. For a moment, she can’t even remember how long its been since she last celebrated Christmas, but the memory comes back with a mix of nostalgic regret and aggravation. Charles and Oxford. He’d given her a dress and gotten so drunk on eggnog that she’d had to pour him into bed.

The room that Alex leads them to is one that she doesn’t remember particularly well, but she’s still a little surprised that it’s Charles’. It’s actually neat and well organized, none of the chaos she remembers Charles favoring. The walls are lined in bookshelves and file cabinets and a large desk takes up most of the space. There’s a record player against the wall beside it, perched on shelves of records.

“I have shit to do, so wait here and don’t touch anything. The professor will come deal with you when he’s done.”

“No threats about not harming him?” Magneto asks in a bored tone.

Alex just scoffs. “You already did your worst and he survived it. And now he’s got a lot more backup than just me, Sean, and Hank, but sure… you go ahead and give it a try.”

That stings. They hadn’t known just how badly Charles was injured when they’d left the beach that day - that knowledge had come months later when it was too late to rectify the situation - but she knows that neither of them have really managed to throw off all of that old guilt completely. She knows that Magneto hadn’t meant for anyone mutant to get hurt that day besides Shaw, but collateral damage happens in war.

To give herself something to do besides watching the boys bitch at each other, she wanders over to the record collection.

There’s all her brother’s old favorites, but there’s also a truly impressive mix of new things. She cannot imagine Charles Xavier listening to Kitty Wells or Johnny Cash, but there they both are, nestled between the Jazz and Beethoven. Nancy Sinatra, too, and a bunch of others she’s not familiar with.

“Anything interesting?” It’s only years of training and necessity that keeps her from startling out of her skin when Magneto appears to peer over her shoulder in curiosity. 

“You done with your pissing contest with Havok?”

The other man is gone, the door still left wide open. He probably didn’t trust them not to steal the silver. Or maybe the records.

Magneto just rolls his eyes and turns to Charles’ desk. She can see he’s tempted to go through it, probably just to spite Alex. They really aren’t here to ‘start trouble’ as Alex had seemed to believe. Or even to spy.

She leaves him to it, her eye caught by the photographs on the wall. There’s an old family portrait that she’s never seen before. She recognizes Charles and Sharon immediately, but she can only guess that the man is Charles’ birth father because of how much he looks like the Charles of now. Sharon and Charles both look happier than either are in Mystique’s memories. Charles can’t be more than five.

It’s the only picture in the cluster where he isn’t in a wheelchair. The next photograph is a group shot of him and the four who’d stayed on the beach with him that day. They’re just off the front steps and there’s a sign in Charles’ hands that declares it ‘Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters’. She recognizes it from where it hangs outside the gate now. 

Most of the other photographs are also group photos taken in the same spot, students and teachers lined up in nice neat little rows. There’s one for each of the six years that the school has been fully operational. Each group is just a little larger than the previous.

The very last photo is another portrait. This one has Charles in the center with a child in his lap. A second child - older than the first, dark glasses covering his eyes - Alex, Sean and a very human looking Beast are standing behind him in a semi-circle. 

She wonders what he’s done with the portrait of her fake blonde mask and then wonders if she really cares.

She’s put it behind her and refuses to be that pathetic girl again, but part of her is still surprised that Charles doesn’t have it up with the rest.

“Nice,” a voice says from the open doorway, the leer obvious in the tone. “Warren said a naked chick showed up, but I thought he musta gone blind from all the studying.”

Turning, she glares at the teenaged boy gawking at her. “Fuck off.”

He just shrugs and grins. “Don’t wanna be stared at, maybe oughta cover up your tits.”

The boy jerks sideways suddenly and his hands fly up to scrabble at the necklace that’s pulling him out of the doorway and further down the hall. 

“I could have just punched him,” she mutters. 

Magneto arches a brow at her and settles himself in front of one of the windows without replying.

They’re not supposed to be punching people today, but that doesn’t mean she won’t if someone pushes her far enough. And she certainly doesn’t need _Magneto_ of all people defending her honor against some idiotic teenager. 

Bored, she begins scanning through the bookshelves. The shelves are still heavy with the sort of science texts that make her brain bleed out her ears and plenty of other school type textbooks, but there are more fiction titles than she’d have expected. One entire shelf near the desk is covered in kids storybooks, some she recognizes from her own time as a child in the mansion.

“Oh, uh… whoa… umm… sorry, I was just looking for the Professor.” Another teenage boy is standing in the doorway gawking at her. This one is familiar, but only because of the portraits. The dark glasses are kind of hard to miss.

Before she can tell him off for staring or point out that there’s no professor here, a girl appears behind him and grabs him by the ear. “Scott Summers, just because some floozy is so desperate for attention, she needs to flaunt her breasts for all and sundry does not mean that you get to look at them.”

“Ow, ow, Jean! I wasn’t- I mean, I couldn’t help- They were _right_ there! It’s not like I was looking for them or anything!”

They can still hear his protestations of innocence as he’s pulled down the hallway and honestly, Mystique is not in the mood for this sort of bullshit today. It’s the work of a second to transform just enough to make it look like she’s wearing a short white dress and thigh high boots. 

Go-go dancer is a good look on her no matter what skin she’s in.

She pokes a finger in Magneto’s direction when he turns her direction. “Do not start with me.”

Though he smirks briefly, a more serious expression settles quickly and he turns fully to face the door. 

A moment later, Charles wheels his way through the doorway, chatting amiably with an older woman who nods at them and asks if they’ll need tea or sandwiches. 

Mystiques stomach growls, but she shakes her head. She’s hoping they won’t have to be here long enough for any of that and she knows Magneto feels the same way.

They have better things to do than reminisce with Charles over things they’d all likely prefer to forget. 

Charles doesn’t greet them until he’s firmly settled behind his desk. “Sorry about the wait, a headmaster’s work is never done, I’m afraid. How may I help you?”

She and Magneto share a glance. Somehow they’d expected that it would take a bit of time and careful steering to get Charles away from topics they had no intention of getting into and onto what they’d actually come for. 

They’ve only gone to him a handful of times in the years since Cuba and each time has been an exercise in patience and annoyance. Apparently he’s finally figured out that there’s nothing personal to talk about anymore.

There isn’t even the familiar brush of his telepathy against the surface of her mind, where he makes sure she’s who she says she is and that she’s fine. 

Nothing at all.

Magneto shrugs it off before she does and sits the folder he’s been carrying around on the desk, pushing it across to Charles. “Fourteen year old pyrokinetic. Her control is abysmal and nothing we’ve been able to do for her seems to be helping. If anything, I’d say she’s getting worse.”

“Hm…” Charles studies the information in the file before opening a drawer of his desk and rifling through it. He pulls out a thick envelope and passes it over. “Student application, handbook, and other assorted forms. There’s also a placement test so that she can be put into the correct class level should she decide that the Institute is a good fit for her. It’ll-”

He breaks off, head tilting slightly. He takes a moment to brace himself and then the little boy in the pictures darts in and flings himself at Charles. 

For a long moment, there’s silence as the pair stare at each other. Then Charles offers the boy a faint smile and shakes his head. “I’m afraid not, David.”

David frowns and twists to glare at her and stare at Magneto in deep suspicion. Then he turns back to Charles. 

“Ah… I had wondered. Sadly, there are a great many people in the world who will try to force you not to use your mutation, David. Even those who would insist that you respect their right to use their own.”

Another pause and he huffs faintly in amusement. “I’m sure Mrs. Ingleton won’t give them any of your cookies. Now, I’m almost entirely certain that Uncle Hank is looking for you. Be a dear and stop hiding from him, yes?”

The little boy sighs heavily, like this is the greatest imposition ever, but nods and clammers back down. He blows a raspberry at Mystique before running back out the door. 

“I suppose that’s the baby telepath that was poking at my brain when we got here,” Mystique asks, frowning. It isn’t that she wants Charles - or any telepath - to stop being mutants. She just wants them to stop using their mutation on _her_. It’s invasive in a way that most other mutations aren’t.

“I do not discuss my students with outsiders who are not affiliated with the school. And if your fourteen year old pyrokinetic is as full of anti-psi bias as the two of you, this is probably not the best place for her. David and I are hardly the only psionics here and I shant tolerate bullying or discrimination at this school. Most of these kids deal with enough of that at home or out there. It has no place here.”

That stings and Mystique jerks back as if he’d slapped her. “That seems a little hypocritical given that I’ve had two of your students leering at me and a girl called me a floozy.”

Charles frowns and stretches to retrieve another form from a nearby file cabinet. “While we do have a dress code, it’s flexible specifically to adjust for personal mutations. At any rate, such behavior is unacceptable. What did the boys look like?”

Taken aback, Mystique looks towards Magneto, but he just shrugs and waves a hand as if to dismiss it all beneath him. It’s clear that making any official complaint is going to be entirely up to her. “The girl called one of the boys Scott Summers and he called her Jean. The other boy looked a little green…”

Honestly, she hadn’t been paying that much attention.

“Hmm… Sounds like Mortimer.” Charles sighs and scrawls something down on the form. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but honestly, he’s the main reason these forms are so close to my desk. They’ll all be appropriately reprimanded and disciplined.”

“She gets on well enough with Frost. Our pyrokinetic.”

Charles relaxes at Magneto’s sudden words even as he continues to fill out the form without looking up at them. “Very well. Look over the handbook and the requirements. Discuss the expectations with her. The number for the admissions line is on the application. There's also a number for emergency situations. Feel free to use it if either you or she deem it necessary.”

“What qualifies as ‘emergency’ here?”

Charles doesn't get a chance to answer because a pre-teen girl suddenly bursts through the wall pulling a boy behind her.

“Professor! Professor! We found-”

She cuts off abruptly when she notices the visitors. 

“What's the rule about closed doors, Kitty?”

The girl looks only vaguely contrite as she recites words she's obviously been told frequently. “Closed doors are probably closed for a reason and you should always knock first. But professor! We were looking for Kurt and we found the box of candles!”

“I'm almost afraid to know where they were,” Charles replies, shaking his head in fond exasperation. “I don't suppose you found Kurt before you raced down here?”

Both kids eyes grow wide and they look at each other, clearly guilty of leaving some poor kid hiding in the attic or something. 

“I thought not.” Charles pushes back from the desk and wheels around. “If you’ll excuse me, I seem to have a missing student to find. Alex will escort you out.”

Then he’s gone. 

That’s it.

It feels incomplete in a way that Mystique isn’t used to feeling around her brother. Usually it’s a battle to get him to stop talking and let them leave without a fuss.

She can’t believe she misses that, just a little, but there it is.

Alex appears in the doorway directly after Charles wheels out of it, so unless he was just hanging outside in the hall the entire time, Charles called him back telepathically. She hates that he doesn’t look uncomfortable about it.

It makes a small part of her feel wrong about how much she's always hated having Charles even brush the edges of her mind. It isn't hypocritical, no matter what Charles may have said about it. Privacy is a basic right and she won't apologize for demanding it.

"Chop, chop," Alex says as they dither, neither entirely sure what just happened. "I actually do have shit I have to do that doesn't involve escorting your asses around."

"Then why are you doing it?" Mystique mutters, feeling off balance and out of sorts. As annoying as it always is, the hopeless optimism and the way he always tries to engage them, remind them of their ties here, is one of the few solid constants in their lives. 

Everything feels slightly off without it.

"Because Charles asked and I don't trust either of you in the vicinity of plant life, let alone kids under my protection."

He says it calm and matter of fact, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"You think we would harm children?" Magneto asks, his voice dangerously low.

Alex swings around to walk backwards, never taking his hands out of his pockets. "I think you're the assholes who left someone you supposedly cared about to bleed to death on a beach with a bullet in his back that your carelessness put there, surrounded by potential hostiles and no way back to civilization and medical treatment. I also think you're the same assholes who blew up a government facility without caring enough to check what the collateral damage would be and killed a few dozen civilians that included a handful of kids… so….yeah. I do."

Even Mystique has to wince at the mention of their last mission. The kids had probably been human, but they'd still been kids. It wasn't their fault that there'd been surprise visitors, but it did bother her, no matter how callous Alex makes them sound.

She isn't sure how Magneto felt about it. He doesn't give his confidences easily anymore - If he ever had, it had probably only been for Charles. 

As for Cuba… well, that was a mess all the way around. No matter how often she spends late nights chasing it around in her head, she can't figure out what any of them could have done differently. That doesn't mean she doesn't wish they could have somehow all walked off that beach together. 

If only her brother wasn't so damned stubborn and arrogant in his assurity that he's always right and refusing to let go or bend in any conviction… he wouldn't be Charles, but he'd be easier to deal with.

Except _something_ has obviously changed somewhere along the way. 

"Denver was… a miscalculation." Magneto must be more unsettled than he looks if he's admitting that to anyone at all, nevermind to Alex Summers.

Alex scoffs. "Miscalculation, my ass. More like, the typical reckless endangerment of anyone and anything unlucky enough to end up in your vicinity. How many of your own men have died or been maimed by your 'miscalculations'?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, just turns back around and leads them outside. 

They get as far as the foyer before David comes sprinting down the stairs giggling. A roar echoes behind him, but it's still a surprise when a blur of blue fur and white coat comes hurtling over the railing to land at the bottom of the stairs just in time to scoop up the little boy.

"Think that's funny, do you, imp? I know for a fact that your father told you to stay-"

It's jarring how often and suddenly conversation stop when someone notices them, but Hank is definitely the worst. He steps back and swings his burden onto his back. It could just be something they do, but Mystique has always been good at reading body language and the years with the Brotherhood have taught her a lot about combat readiness.

Hank is 100% ready to try to tear their throats out if they move towards the boy.

“Beast.”

There’s a low vibration rumbling around them, a clear sign of Hank’s agitation. “That's not my name, Magneto.”

He sneers the last word, all of his disdain of their own chosen names on full display.

“Sorry, Hank. I’d’a had them out if here by now, but they move like molasses.” Alex looks genuinely contrite.

“It’s fine-” it obviously wasn't “-come to the lab when you're done taking out the garbage. I have upgrades for you and Scott.”

He pats David's hands around his neck, holding them tightly, and leaps back up the way he came.

“Aren’t the labs in the basement?”

“None of your business. Now stop lollygagging and move. You've got what you came for and nothing else here is _any_ of your business.” He starts herding instead of leading after that, all but shoving them out the door.

Mystique allows it simply because her mind is running through something more important. 

Uncle Hank. Your father. Scott _Summers_. 

That portrait in Charles' office is a family portrait. 

David… her nephew?

"Where's his mother?" She blurts out. "Is it Moira?"

Beside her, Magneto freezes. Has he really not put that much together? He's usually quicker than that.

"Forgot basic English at terrorist school? It's not your business."

"He's my brother."

The smile Alex levels at her is more genuinely malicious than she'd thought he was capable of. "He's not, actually. Raven Darkholme is dead. It's official and everything. All you are is the bitch that _killed_ his sister."

That's … she staggers a little, her breath catching in her chest. 

"What?" Is that her voice? It doesn't sound like her. It sounds like a small, broken thing. 

Magneto's hand grips her elbow just a little too tightly, but it's grounding more than painful. 

Still bearing that cruel little smirk, Alex suddenly veers off towards the gardens. 

They follow, because what else can they do after that?

The garden he leads them to isn't one that was there before. There's a lovely young woman with dark skin and a shock of white hair tending to flowers. Even as they approach, she raises a hand and a small stormcloud appears just over one corner of the garden.

She startles only a little when she notices their intrusion. It's obvious that she recognizes them in the way she settles into a slightly defensive stance. "Professor Summers?"

Mystique can't quite place her accent, but it's weird to hear anyone calling Alex 'professor’.

"Its okay, Ro. We're just taking a look at the memorial."

She doesn't look much more relaxed at the explanation, but she nods. “I’ll be over here.”

Unspoken, but heard by all, is the _if you need back up_ on the end.

The inner part of the garden is a hedge maze, simplistic, but well kept. Alex leads them through a few twists and turns before they hit the center.

There are six stone monoliths, each about Magneto’s height. 

Alex gestures towards the farthest one. “Welcome to the Memorial Garden for the Fallen.”

It’s beautiful, is the thing.

Mystique wants to hate it, but every inch of it is thoughtfully laid out and put together. She glances at the other monoliths as she passes them heading towards the one Alex indicated.

There are faces immortalized in lacquer and stone, names and dates, quotes and eulogies. She recognizes more of the names and faces than she's comfortable with. Several of these mutants met their ends at the hands of the Brotherhood. They never want to hurt other mutants, but sometimes they find themselves in opposition with Charles' X-Men and none of them will hesitate to put down the threat in those situations.

A tiny voice in the back of her head reminds her that the X-Men fight back in those same situations and manage to only subdue, never kill.

That's just a product of Charles and his weaknesses, though. It's not because- well… it's not because they're better people or right or anything like that.

The first face she sees when they stop is Darwin's and her breath catches as she remembers him as he was in those few days they'd had before Shaw had killed him. There’s still a part of her heart that clenches at the memory of the light of Alex’s mutated power cracking through the dark skin of a man who had been the friendliest and the calmest of their number. Sometimes she wonders if Cuba wouldn’t have gone very differently if Darwin had lived.

It’s impossible to really link the picture on the next side of the monolith with Magneto. It’s pure Erik, through and through. Unlike Darwin’s, this picture is a candid rather than a file shot. He’s grinning at the camera in the sort of way he only ever grinned at Charles. The date listed for death is that awful day on the beach and below, a poem is engraved. 

_Eric Lehnsherr_  
beloved  
‘Your absence has gone through me  
Like thread through a needle.  
Everything I do is stitched with its color.’ - WS Merwin 

Magneto reaches out to trace over the words though his eyes are drawn up to the picture. “I remember that day… Charles could be so obnoxious when he found a new toy to play with.”

Mystique leaves him to it, moving around the monolith to find her own memorial. She can feel tears prickling at the back of her eyes when she finally does.

It’s completely different than the others. There's a stone vase attached beneath the eulogy, a bright bouquet of her favorite orchids, sprinkled through with baby's breath and forget-me-not. The ‘birthdate’ isn’t the one they made up for whenever people had questions, it’s the day he found her in the kitchen and decided to keep her. The ‘death’ is the same as Erik’s, Cuba. Here, she finds the photograph she was expecting in the house, the solo of her blonde mask. If that was it, it’d be easier to scoff and ignore this as a travesty. It’s only half of it, though. The other half is an artistic rendition of her as she was all those years ago, small and blue and scaled, beaming out at the world as she’s sure she must have been beaming at the strange pale boy who gave her a home for no other reason than because she didn’t have one and he was lonely.

_Raven Darkholme,  
beloved sister_

_‘Nature’s first green is gold,_  
Her hardest hue to hold.  
Her early leaf’s a flower;  
But only so an hour.  
Then leaf subsides to leaf,  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day  
Nothing gold can stay.’ -Robert Frost 

“He can’t just have people declared dead,” She mutters, unable to stop herself from reaching out just like Magneto had.

“If I recall correctly, your exact words to him the last time you came calling was … what was it? Oh right, ‘Raven and Erik are dead and we’re what’s left, let it go already and Get. Over. It.’”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You wanted him to put Erik and Raven behind him? He did. You don’t get to complain about how he had to do it. And I don’t know why you’re surprised, anyways. You betrayed him, you abandoned him, and the only time either of you ever show up here or contact him at all is when you need something and you can’t get it any other way. Nostalgia won’t get you shit here anymore. You're nothing more than a potential student guardian and not a damned thing more."

He looks ridiculously pleased about that. Of all the ones left on the beach that day, Alex has been the most vocally opposed to their presence on those occasions when they have come looking for help.

This solid proof that Charles has put his hopes for reconciliation firmly behind him must have been like all his Christmases and birthdays come at once.

"This isn't what I meant," she can't help but mutters again as she glances at Magneto. 

The look on his face is more complicated than how she feels. He's sad - she's pretty sure that he's always assumed that there would be a later, after they won, when they _could_ reunite with Charles - but he also looks a shade more content than something like this deserves. Magneto has weird reactions to things sometimes and she certainly can't claim to know what goes on in that squirrelly head, but honestly, this one is ridiculous even for him.

Charles had them declared _dead_. Hell, with his mutation, Charles could convince everyone and make it stick. She's pretty sure he could convince himself.

Has he?

Is that why there was no brush of telepathy earlier?

With the helmet, Magneto would be the easy one. She knows that Charles struggles with things like television and cinema where there are no minds to feel. He likened it once to watching creepy mannequins walk and talk. So yeah, she can imagine it was harder to keep acknowledging Magneto as a real live person than convincing himself otherwise.

But her?

She has no such block and he spent years complaining about how hard it was _not_ to slip into such familiar territory. Could he have managed to wipe that from his own mind? She isn't sure that even he knows the true extent of his powers, but it does seem possible… in theory, at least.

"Time to go," Alex says, poking her in the side. He seems much more cheerful for having dropped this bombshell on them. "Don't let the gate hit your ass on the way out."

He starts literally shooing them out of the garden and towards the gate.

Once it's firmly shut, he gives them a jaunty wave and heads back to the mansion, whistling an obnoxious tune as he goes.

Unlike Magneto, Mystique has never held any delusion of ever convincing Charles that they're on the right side of things short of actual mutant internment camps and 'cures' becoming widespread and public. Her brother has always been far too attached to his vision of everyone suddenly learning to lay down arms and hug it out.

But she's apparently been lying to herself because it _hurts_. She may have never intended to come back, to rejoin her brothers stupid crusade for cohabitation, but the fact that she _can't_? 

It's the worst kind of freefall.

She wonders if Charles will care when she hits the ground.

For the first time in her life, she isn't sure and she hates it.

Fin


End file.
